EA Sports. Archive

Last week, XBLAFans ran down the 25 best XBLA games to be released on the Xbox 360. This week, some of the games that didn’t make the cut get a second chance as select members of our staff make their cases for their personal XBLA favorites.

Sometimes the games you have the most fun with are not necessarily the best games. Sometimes the experiences and the memories are more important than the games themselves. Case in point: EA’s reboot of the NFL Blitz franchise.

I have vivid memories of playing the various Blitz sports franchises as a younger gamer. The NFL Blitz series is notorious for the over-the-top gameplay, late hits, wild commentary and just plain old fun. With original publisher Midway out of the picture, EA Sports, decided to reboot the franchise in early 2012. The gameplay that I remember is still intact with one exception, the late hits. The National Football League stepped in and asked EA to remove this feature as it currently doesn’t align with the NFL’s stance on player safety.

So where is the fun now that the extracurricular activity has been removed? For me it exists in two distinct places. The single player Ladder mode in which you take on a series of NFL teams with a fictitious team thrown in. Usually these make-believe teams consist of players with heads that are in the likeness of horses, clowns, hot dogs, cowboys, etc. I personally spent the most time with this mode, as one of my sons and I had a great time moving up the ladder and unlocking more and more ridiculous teams. The mode that I can see most adults spending their time with is the online Elite League mode as there is a plethora of content to be unlocked here. However, none of this would be noteworthy if EA didn’t bring back the signature style gameplay. NFL Blitz in 2012 was not just a jog down memory lane, but also a reminder that solid gameplay mechanics coupled with new fresh ideas can still make a franchise relevant.

EA Sports released a roster update for NBA Jam: On Fire Edition this past Thursday. While much of it seems to be shifts in player teams, there might have been a new player in there that we missed. Operation Sports was kind enough to post a video of the most recent roster update on their YouTube channel which outlines the changes.

This update is the first since April 2012, which added 14 new players to the game’s lineup. Prior to that an update was made in January 2012 which traded/added/dropped a number of players. Both of those roster updates can be found after the break, but we don’t have any details on the newest update aside from Operation Sports’ video.

To download the update simply boot NBA Jam and head to the Online Arena section. The game will then begin the download.

When we started XBLA’s Most Wanted back in February of 2011 we did so more for fun. It was, in our minds, a pipe dream to actually think some of these games would be hitting Xbox Live Arcade. Yet over the past year we’ve seen both announcements and releases that directly correlate with some of the games on our most wanted list. Now to be fair we realize that we’re just one site, but at the same time we know that developers and publishers look out on the web for what the fans want. We like to think we’re a little part of that. Here are some examples that make us think XBLA’s Most Wanted is successful:

Although Joe Flacco bore a striking resemblance to the living dead when his Ravens edged out the Texans in their AFC Divisional playoff game last weekend, that’s not actually him wearing a different jersey depicted in the above image. No, what you’re looking at is the Easter egg awarded to players for completing “Blitz Gauntlet” mode in the XBLA and PSN title, NFL Blitz. The unlockable zombie team is an obvious nod to the 1993 Sega Genesis classic, Mutant League Football.

Naturally, its inclusion has led to speculation over whether or not this is EA’s way of teasing a new Mutant League release of some sort. Kotaku’s Owen Good took it upon himself to investigate the matter; in doing so he discovered that a number of designers within the studio are indeed interested in such a project. This does not, however, in any way confirm that a remake or sequel is definitively on the way.

EA Sports confirmed to Kotaku today that their downloadable sports title, NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, will be the beneficiary of a roster update at some point down the road. “We will be providing roster updates for NBA Jam: On Fire Edition this season,” said EA’s rep. Specifically when or how often they’ll be refreshed was not divulged. The spokeswoman only stated that there is still “more information to come.”

The game released back in October in the middle of a turbulent time for the NBA: the lockout that was resolved last month. A number of players moved from one team to another when the brief free agency period finally got underway, leaving NBA Jam’s roster way out of sync. Roster updates reflecting the current personnel on each team would remedy the issue.

In this week’s NFL Blitz 2-minute drill we get a look at the Blitz Store. By playing games you earn an in-game currency called Blitz Bucks. Once you have a big wad of digital dollars in your pocket, you can go to the Blitz Store to buy items that will customize your football experience, such as power-ups, cheat codes, and Elite League players. Thankfully you’ll only gain bucks by playing games, not by buying it with real-world money. Make sure you visit the Blitz Store when NFL Blitz is released early in 2012.

Last week we told you about the co-op features that will be in the new iteration of NFL Blitz. Well this week, it’s all about “Elite Leagues”. The third and “deepest” online mode. Very reminiscent of the Ultimate Team mode in Madden NFL, Elite Leagues looks to add a little more arcade flare. You’ll be able to use the “Blitz Bucks” you’ve earned from online games to buy card packs that will contain new players and power ups for your team. Both players and power up have contracts that will deplete after every game. Using your Blitz Bucks, you’ll be able to renew that players or power ups contract. Pro Players and Ultimate players feature infinite contracts, and can be received by trading in a full team of cards. It looks as though Elite Leagues takes what’s great in the Ultimate Team mode in Madden NFL, and what’s great in NFL Blitz, and makes a fun, addicting mode for gamers. More information about the mode can be seen below.

A few months ago the new iteration of NFL Blitz was revealed, but little was known about the reboot. Over the last few weeks we’ve received more and more details about the game via the “Blitz two-minute drills” videos. This week, NFL Blitz Designer, Yuri Bialoskursky, took to the NFL Blitz blog to let us know about the co-op modes featured in the game. With two modes, “Blitz Teams” and “Online co-op”, both detailed in the video above, the newest version of NFL Blitz wants you to play the game with friends, and that’s perfectly fine with us.

Blitz Teams – Allows you to both create and customize a team with logos and banners from the “Blitz Store”. From there you can invite a friend to either be the co-owner of the team, or to just be a teammate. You can use your teammate as a safety net: By pressing the friendly pass button (LB), the ball will automatically be passed to your co-op partner. Taking your team to the top of the “Battle Boards” and into the Hall of Fame is your ultimate goal.

Online Co-Op – The same great gameplay that’s featured in Blitz Teams, but in this mode, you don’t have to worry about creating a team. You can choose to quick co-op if you just want to play some freakin’ NFL Blitz, or you can invite up to three friends to play co-op with you. You can also invite a friend if you just want to play co-op against the computer.

You can check out some recently released screens from the upcoming co-op modes below. The newest iteration of NFL Blitz is due out January 4th for 1200MSP. Read the rest of this entry »

The classic football game NFL Blitz is being re-booted for XBLA for January 2012, and EA Sports has already started an exciting countdown. On the game’s official site, they’re releasing new information every week in a series of “Two-Minute Drill” videos, narrated by Yuri Bialoskursky, one of the game’s designers. They’ve already counted down for four weeks, so here’s a run-down of what’s been released so far:

Art Director Tony Stanley is hard at work making sure the new game stays true to the look of the originals while moving the graphics towards a newer HD generation. As you can see below, he’s doing his job very well.

The single-player Blitz Gauntlet mode allows you to customize a team and take them through a multi-tiered gauntlet challenge, which will include boss battles in a power-up covered Blitz Colosseum. Completing a boss battle gives you a cheat code to unlock one of the fantasy characters.

One of the new online modes is Blitz Battles. Earn ranking points to rank up your position on the local, regional, and national Battle Boards. Your position can be seen next to your gamertag in the form of badges. Do really good, you may just wind up in the Hall of Fame.

The site has all of the videos planned up until the game’s release, ranging from cheats to tips. Next week’s video will include the co-op and team play. Check out the videos on the NFL Blitz official site and be sure to check back every week for a new video.

NBA Jam has a lot of crazy dunk animations, but what if these awesome moves were given names? Fans on Facebook submitted their own custom dunk calls, the best of which are presented in this video and announced by the great Shaquille O’Neal. You may find this video Shaqtastic, or you may find it “horrawful”, but you have to admit those are some crazy dunks. NBA Jam: On Fire Edition is available now on XBLA.